George Orwell -- part II
Nov. 14th, 2004 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudraNotes for "Such, Such were the Joys," "Shooting An Elephant," "Marrakech," and "Looking Back on the Spanish War."
GEORGE ORWELL (cont’d)
SUCH, SUCH WERE THE JOYS...
1947
More background on Orwell: though he was born in India, in 1904, one-year-old George Orwell (or Eric Blair) moved with his mother and sister to England. While in England, Orwell went to a prep school (St. Cyprian’s Preparatory School in Easbourne, or Crossgates as he calls it), which he didn’t like much, as seen in this essay.
While many of his memories are personal, they bring out the social prejudices among the Britain elite of the early 1900s. Rich kids were favored, and the poor were targeted for punishments borderlining on abuse. Knowing how impressionable young children are, this would be the time that Orwell developed his aversion towards the English class systems, and later his antipathy towards the abuse of power of the rich (globally: imperialism).
- p. 7: “All the very rich boys were more or less undisguisedly favoured.”
- p. 11: “In effect there were three castes in the school. There was the minority with an aristocratic or millionaire background, there were the children of the ordinary suburban rich…, and there were a few underlings like myself.”
- p. 36: “I did not question the prevailing standards, because so far as I could see there were no others. How could the rich, the strong, the elegant, the fashionable, the powerful, be in the wrong?”
- p. 42: “Failure, failure, failure—failure behind me, failure ahead of me—that was by far the deepest conviction that I carried away.”
- Repeatedly quoted: if the underprivileged boy doesn’t do well in school and earn a scholarship to colleges, he will become “a little office-boy at forty pounds a year” (this one from p. 12).
Sections breakdown:
I: Orwell at eight. He wets his bed repeatedly and gets disciplined.
II: Description of the school: the people, different social classes, the headmaster and his wife, his track of education (for the poor students).
III: Orwell’s recollection of school days. His good memories, the daily routines, the (disgusting) condition of the food and bathroom, some positive moments with Bingo and Sim.
IV: The sexual scandal.
V: The school’s version of living the “traditions” of the rich. The rich sets the standards and act as judges. As an underling, Orwell came to believe that whatever he does (as a non-rich) will fail.
VI: Thoughts about his school and the educational system in retrospect. Anti-boarding schools.
SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT
1936
Orwell recalls a memory while he was serving in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. It is merely a description of an incident, but Orwell uses an overall bleak tone, negative diction, and some rather grotesque imagery to convey his belief that Burma is a destitute place because of imperialism.
- p. 148. To convey how much he (a face representing imperialism) was hated, Orwell writes: “When a numble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowed yelled with hideous laughter.”
- p. 149: “…it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism—the real motives for which despotic governments act.” Orwell is called to kill an elephant. To “Orientals,” Imperialists have only one job: to kill.
- p. 151: “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” To parallel Orwell’s hatred of imperialism, he knows he “ought not” be playing a part of propagating imperialism, but...
- p. 152: “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” In a sense, Orwell has no choice but to kill the elephant. He (the perceived tyrant according to the Burmese) cannot escape from his duty.
- p. 156: “I often wonder whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking like a fool.” Orwell acted the imperialist out of fear. One must wonder: globally, what really is the motivation behind the “race” of imperialism among colonizing empires like Britain and France?
There are tons of great imagery and literary devices throughout this essay. I chose to outline the theme/political overtone because I’m sure Orwell’s great imageries are easier to remember than the technical exposition of the essay.
MARRAKECH
1939
One of the major assumptions of early Orientalists is that Orientals and Africans are incapable of logical reasoning, and therefore are not as rationally superior as Westerners. Orwell counters this popular notion. He argues that non-Westerners are capable of independent thought (and independence). It’s just a matter of time until they’ll have everything figured out: “How much longer can we go on kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?” (p. 187). This voices what Europeans always know: their overthrow in Africa is inevitable. Colonialism will end. It’s a matter of when, not if.
A note on imperialism: Orwell uses un-human words to describe the natives. It is his way of mocking the justification of colonization: “a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects” “he is the same colour as the earth, and a great deal less interesting to look at” “what is strange about these people is their invisibility.” He is raising the point that in order for Europeans to live with clear consciences about imperialism, they have to ignore the fact that those they subjugate are human beings.
There are five sections, tied together with great imageries and descriptive characterizations:
I. Funeral passage
II. Feeding a gazelle
III. Jews (note: this was written a few months before WWII, Nazis were approaching.)
IV. Invisibility of blacks, women, Moroccans in general
V. Parade of black army
Some good quotes and imageries:
- p. 180: “As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.”
- p. 182: “I could eat some of that bread.”
- p. 183: “In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal.”
- pp. 185-186: “Firewood was passing—that was how I saw it. It was only that one day I happened to be walking behind them, and the curious up-and-down motion of a load of wood drew my attention to the human being beneath it.”
- p. 187: “He has been taught that the white race are his masters, and he still believes it.”
LOOKING BACK ON THE SPANISH WAR
1943
The larger backdrop against this war is Democracy vs. Fascism. From this “big picture” of the Spanish civil war, Orwell zooms into the lives of individual soldiers. He takes away all the glories of war. In this essay, Orwell poignantly explores human emotion and reaction under the stress of war. He paints us a picture of war as it is: the reality.
The two most significant images in this essay are: 1) the scene describing the latrines, and 2) Orwell’s two memories from the war.
- pp. 188-189: “I would not mention them [latrines] if it were not that the latrine in our barracks did its necessary bit towards puncturing my own illusions about the Spanish civil war. The Latin type of latrine, at which you have to squat, is bad enough at its best, but these were made of some kind of polished stone so slippery that it was all you could do to keep on your feet. In addition they were always blocked. Now I have plenty of other disgusting things in my memory, but I believe it was these latrines that first brought home to me the thought, so often to recur: ‘Here we are, soldiers of a revolutionary army, defending Democracy against Fascism, fighting a war which is about something, and the detail of our lives is just as sordid and degrading as it could be in prison, let alone in a bourgeois army.’”
- p. 192: “The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.”
- pp. 193-194: “At this moment a man, presumably carrying a message to an officer, jumped out of he trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him... I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist,’ he is visibly a fellow-creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.”
- p. 196: “But in Spain in 1936 we were not living in a normal time. It was a time when generous feelings and gestures were easier than they ordinarily are... Could you feel friendly towards somebody, and stick up for him in a quarrel, after you had been ignominiously searched in his presence for property you were supposed to have stolen from him? No, you couldn’t; but you might if you had both been through some emotionally widening experience. That is one of the by-products of revolution, though in this case it was only the beginnings of a revolution, and obviously foredoomed to failure.”
- p. 203: “When one thing of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war—and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings—there is always the temptation to say: ‘One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral.’ In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins.”
GEORGE ORWELL (cont’d)
SUCH, SUCH WERE THE JOYS...
1947
More background on Orwell: though he was born in India, in 1904, one-year-old George Orwell (or Eric Blair) moved with his mother and sister to England. While in England, Orwell went to a prep school (St. Cyprian’s Preparatory School in Easbourne, or Crossgates as he calls it), which he didn’t like much, as seen in this essay.
While many of his memories are personal, they bring out the social prejudices among the Britain elite of the early 1900s. Rich kids were favored, and the poor were targeted for punishments borderlining on abuse. Knowing how impressionable young children are, this would be the time that Orwell developed his aversion towards the English class systems, and later his antipathy towards the abuse of power of the rich (globally: imperialism).
- p. 7: “All the very rich boys were more or less undisguisedly favoured.”
- p. 11: “In effect there were three castes in the school. There was the minority with an aristocratic or millionaire background, there were the children of the ordinary suburban rich…, and there were a few underlings like myself.”
- p. 36: “I did not question the prevailing standards, because so far as I could see there were no others. How could the rich, the strong, the elegant, the fashionable, the powerful, be in the wrong?”
- p. 42: “Failure, failure, failure—failure behind me, failure ahead of me—that was by far the deepest conviction that I carried away.”
- Repeatedly quoted: if the underprivileged boy doesn’t do well in school and earn a scholarship to colleges, he will become “a little office-boy at forty pounds a year” (this one from p. 12).
Sections breakdown:
I: Orwell at eight. He wets his bed repeatedly and gets disciplined.
II: Description of the school: the people, different social classes, the headmaster and his wife, his track of education (for the poor students).
III: Orwell’s recollection of school days. His good memories, the daily routines, the (disgusting) condition of the food and bathroom, some positive moments with Bingo and Sim.
IV: The sexual scandal.
V: The school’s version of living the “traditions” of the rich. The rich sets the standards and act as judges. As an underling, Orwell came to believe that whatever he does (as a non-rich) will fail.
VI: Thoughts about his school and the educational system in retrospect. Anti-boarding schools.
SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT
1936
Orwell recalls a memory while he was serving in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. It is merely a description of an incident, but Orwell uses an overall bleak tone, negative diction, and some rather grotesque imagery to convey his belief that Burma is a destitute place because of imperialism.
- p. 148. To convey how much he (a face representing imperialism) was hated, Orwell writes: “When a numble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowed yelled with hideous laughter.”
- p. 149: “…it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism—the real motives for which despotic governments act.” Orwell is called to kill an elephant. To “Orientals,” Imperialists have only one job: to kill.
- p. 151: “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” To parallel Orwell’s hatred of imperialism, he knows he “ought not” be playing a part of propagating imperialism, but...
- p. 152: “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” In a sense, Orwell has no choice but to kill the elephant. He (the perceived tyrant according to the Burmese) cannot escape from his duty.
- p. 156: “I often wonder whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking like a fool.” Orwell acted the imperialist out of fear. One must wonder: globally, what really is the motivation behind the “race” of imperialism among colonizing empires like Britain and France?
There are tons of great imagery and literary devices throughout this essay. I chose to outline the theme/political overtone because I’m sure Orwell’s great imageries are easier to remember than the technical exposition of the essay.
MARRAKECH
1939
One of the major assumptions of early Orientalists is that Orientals and Africans are incapable of logical reasoning, and therefore are not as rationally superior as Westerners. Orwell counters this popular notion. He argues that non-Westerners are capable of independent thought (and independence). It’s just a matter of time until they’ll have everything figured out: “How much longer can we go on kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?” (p. 187). This voices what Europeans always know: their overthrow in Africa is inevitable. Colonialism will end. It’s a matter of when, not if.
A note on imperialism: Orwell uses un-human words to describe the natives. It is his way of mocking the justification of colonization: “a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects” “he is the same colour as the earth, and a great deal less interesting to look at” “what is strange about these people is their invisibility.” He is raising the point that in order for Europeans to live with clear consciences about imperialism, they have to ignore the fact that those they subjugate are human beings.
There are five sections, tied together with great imageries and descriptive characterizations:
I. Funeral passage
II. Feeding a gazelle
III. Jews (note: this was written a few months before WWII, Nazis were approaching.)
IV. Invisibility of blacks, women, Moroccans in general
V. Parade of black army
Some good quotes and imageries:
- p. 180: “As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.”
- p. 182: “I could eat some of that bread.”
- p. 183: “In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal.”
- pp. 185-186: “Firewood was passing—that was how I saw it. It was only that one day I happened to be walking behind them, and the curious up-and-down motion of a load of wood drew my attention to the human being beneath it.”
- p. 187: “He has been taught that the white race are his masters, and he still believes it.”
LOOKING BACK ON THE SPANISH WAR
1943
The larger backdrop against this war is Democracy vs. Fascism. From this “big picture” of the Spanish civil war, Orwell zooms into the lives of individual soldiers. He takes away all the glories of war. In this essay, Orwell poignantly explores human emotion and reaction under the stress of war. He paints us a picture of war as it is: the reality.
The two most significant images in this essay are: 1) the scene describing the latrines, and 2) Orwell’s two memories from the war.
- pp. 188-189: “I would not mention them [latrines] if it were not that the latrine in our barracks did its necessary bit towards puncturing my own illusions about the Spanish civil war. The Latin type of latrine, at which you have to squat, is bad enough at its best, but these were made of some kind of polished stone so slippery that it was all you could do to keep on your feet. In addition they were always blocked. Now I have plenty of other disgusting things in my memory, but I believe it was these latrines that first brought home to me the thought, so often to recur: ‘Here we are, soldiers of a revolutionary army, defending Democracy against Fascism, fighting a war which is about something, and the detail of our lives is just as sordid and degrading as it could be in prison, let alone in a bourgeois army.’”
- p. 192: “The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.”
- pp. 193-194: “At this moment a man, presumably carrying a message to an officer, jumped out of he trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him... I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist,’ he is visibly a fellow-creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.”
- p. 196: “But in Spain in 1936 we were not living in a normal time. It was a time when generous feelings and gestures were easier than they ordinarily are... Could you feel friendly towards somebody, and stick up for him in a quarrel, after you had been ignominiously searched in his presence for property you were supposed to have stolen from him? No, you couldn’t; but you might if you had both been through some emotionally widening experience. That is one of the by-products of revolution, though in this case it was only the beginnings of a revolution, and obviously foredoomed to failure.”
- p. 203: “When one thing of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war—and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings—there is always the temptation to say: ‘One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral.’ In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins.”
